Handling difficult conversations with the board, internal investigations and the challenges posed by social media all feature on the agenda at Legal Week's annual Corporate Counsel Forum Middle East next month.

More than 150 senior in-house lawyers will attend the one-day conference, which will be held at the Park Hyatt in Dubai on 13 May and chaired by Arab Banking Corporation's Afshan Akhtar.

Speakers include Anneliese Reinhold, GC of regional telecoms leader du, Deepa Tharmaraj, legal director of Dell, Mark Beer, chief executive and registrar of the DIFC Courts, and Tony Moss, head of discovery at British American Tobacco.

Judge Mohamed Alsuboosi, chief justice of the commercial court in Dubai, will deliver a keynote address on the changes at the Dubai commercial courts, with a particular focus on technology developments.

With internal communication skills becoming vital for general counsel as they handle stressful situations such as investigations and high-stakes litigation, a panel including Akhtar and Eversheds' UAE managing partner, Ben Bruton, will examine how to ensure grievances don't escalate and strike the right balance between supporting staff in litigation without 'coaching' them.

Other topics to be covered include arbitration in the Middle East, managing virtual teams and how GCs can demonstrate their value, while Dentons' Middle East managing partner, Michael Kerr, will address how to mitigate risk without hampering business activity.

Akhtar comments: "The programme has been carefully designed to incorporate pertinent issues facing the in-house legal community with a focus on enhancing the knowledge of in-house counsel in critical situations through the art of communication, management and risk mitigation. Throughout the programme we also examine the impact of advances in technology on the operating environment of the in-house legal function."

Akhtar is a former winner of General Counsel of the Year at the Corporate Counsel Middle East Awards, which will take place at Raffles Dubai on the following day (14 May), and a member of the judging panel.

A record 25 multinational and regional companies will be represented at the awards, including General Electric, Emirates Group, Nakheel, DP World, Gulf General Investment Co and Emirates NBD.